Tweet
Several meetings have taken place considering whether to keep or drop the football program according to sources in the athletic program. High expenses, low retention in the football program are some of the reasons as Limestone is struggling to keep their doors open due to the virus pandemic. If football is kept, then several minor sports will have to be dropped which will affect Title IX rules. Dropping football will keep the other programs alive which have much higher retention rate compared to football and much less expenses. (scholarships, travel, coaching staff salaries, etc.). Florida Tech just dropped their program last week and was having much success.
-
-
That doesn't seem to bode too well for the Conference Carolinas schools which are or will be launching football in the coming years.Cal U (Pa.) Class of 2014 -
Limestone Football is aligned with the SAC, so the conference will be losing a team. I believe this is the first of several dominos to fall in this region. Things are just starting to heat up. A projected minimum of 31% fall in enrollment this coming fall for private institutions, which are tuition dependent (no mater the size of their endowment) means major cuts being made, if they can survive. We may end up seeing a need to merge Conference Carolinas and the SAC to maintain NCAA Division 2 conference requirements.Comment
-
No surprise here. The low retention is a reflection of about 5 coaches in 6 years. That falls strictly on the Athletic Director.The lack of ability to pick out coaches, and understanding of how a football program should be run. I can save them some money. First, get rid of the many assistant athletic directors they have. Many D2 schools operate with an AD, and one Asst AD in charge of compliance. Overstaffed in Administration at Limestone. Second, they don't need a strength coach, coaches can get certification in Strength and Conditioning. It appears Limestone has really just been running an enrollment program, not really serious about success in football. Newsflash, nobody knew much about the school until they started football. Football is the front porch of the Institution, not Lacrosse. The high number of coaches since the inception of the football program is a reflection of inability of the AD to manage the hiring process and evaluate coaches. I mean, the original coach was out of there in just a couple of years, and here's the best one, the previous coach never even had a chance to have a recruiting class. You can't even make this stuff up. You would have to come to only one conclusion. This has been a failure by leadership. FOriginally posted by Saints62 View PostComment
-
I have been told by the Limestone athletics department that this is completely untrue. There has been no discussion about dropping football or any other sport at Limestone.Comment
-
Thanks for this post Chuck. There are a lot of "stories" floating around out there concerning different schools and potential cuts so its important not to take what you hear and run with it as fact.Comment
-
If you were referring to my reference to Conference Carolinas, I am aware that Limestone is about to become a full member of the SAC. I should've clarified what I meant by that statement.Originally posted by Eagle74 View Post
We have as many as five current or future ConfCar members who either currently or are planning to sponsor football. My concern was any potential loss of football at Limestone on planned programs at Barton, Erskine, etc.
Now that Chuck has debunked the OP through his contacts, my entire point would appear to be moot as it pertains to Limestone. But, I wouldn't be shocked if, in a few years, you hear rumors of a CC/SAC merger, but also seeing the Tennessee D2 schools (plus UVA-Wise) - and this includes football and non-football schools - exploring their own all-sports conference.Cal U (Pa.) Class of 2014Comment
-
I have been away from D2 Football for a few weeks and first thing back I see Saints62 trolling again. Actually from the lacrosse blog Fanlax, someone posted a summary from a Forbes article rating the finances of private schools:
In the original list (this one has been edited to reflect Limestone moving to the SAC) Limestone was second best in Conference Carolinas at 1.93 (C- grade in Forbes).With schools starting to close or shut down athletic programs, I was interested in what laxpert and Homer posted in the D1 thread "How many schools will drop lacrosse?" and I did a little research and comparison using that Forbes list that graded each school on their financial health. For those who didn't go through it, they graded almost every private school with a gpa, highest rating being a 4.5. After reading this IL article (https://www.insidelacrosse.com/article/ ... orts/56338) about conferences opening up the door to cut non-revenue sports, I was interested to see how lacrosse programs looked going forward and how the conferences stacked up. I'm not saying that a low score will result in a program being removed, I just thought it was interesting to look at. I'm going to post each conference for D2 here, and in case anyone is interested, I'll do a similar post in both the D1 and D3 threads.
For starters, D1 has 51 private schools that got a ranking, with an average GPA of 2.81.
D2 has 65 private schools on the list with an average of 1.79.
D3 has 209 schools rated with a GPA average of 2.23.
Here are the conferences ranked:
Sunshine - 1.94 (Highs: Embry-Riddle - 2.65, Palm Beach Atlantic - 2.43 Lows: Saint Leo - 1.48, Florida Tech - 1.03)
ECC - 1.93 (Highs: Mercy - 2.68, St. Thomas Aquinas - 2.00 Lows: Roberts Wesleyan - 1.62, NYIT - 1.55)
SAC - 1.87 (Highs: Queens - 3.23, Anderson (new program in 2021) - 2.68 Lows: Newberry - 1.15, Lenoir-Rhyne - 0.98)
NE10 - 1.86 (Highs: Southern New HAmpshire - 2.79, Bentley - 2.63 Lows: American International - 1.14, Saint Rose - 1.11)
GLVC - 1.76 (Highs: Lindenwood - 2.61, Maryville - 2.44 Lows: Shorter - 1.11, Quincy - 1.01)
G-MAC - 1.71 (Highs: Davis & Elkins - 3.36, Walsh - 2.08 Lows: Alderson-Broaddus - 1.04, Lake Erie - 0.98)
CACC - 1.62 (Highs: Wilmington - 2.72, Georgian Court - 2.00 Lows: Caldwell - 1.09, Chestnut Hill - 1.04)
Carolinas - 1.61 (Highs: Lees-McRae - 2.57, North Greenville - 1.91 Lows: Mount Olive - 1.17, Belmont Abbey - 0.97)
RMAC - 1.45 (2 private schools: Westminster -1.91, Rockhurst - 0.99)
1 current independent school is Davenport - 1.62 and 1 future is Flagler - 2.27.
Again, I'm not sure that this really means anything, just something to do while sitting at home. But it is interesting to see what schools could potentially be in danger in each conference.
Limestone is just not in any serious trouble financially at this time. But the numbers for LR surprised me a lot. (As did Lees-McRae being as high).Comment
-
Limestone may be utilizing their new SAC option on no scholarship minimums for their sports programs, including football. Hopefully this doesn't turn into another Brevard situation, where it was said that they were trying to compete as a competitive D2 Football program while only dividing a few scholarships.Comment
-
Not really an issue. There has been no talk that I am aware of Limestone dropping scholarships. I don't think they are at full funding but they should be a significant fraction of full according to my sources.Originally posted by Eagle74 View PostComment
-
Thanks for the research RedFromMi,
Comment
-
Educational annalist are saying that early signs show that there's going to a 31% drop in enrollment for private colleges / institutions this coming fall. Most D2 private schools are heavily dependent on tuition - fees / books / room & board, etc. For Limestone, that equates to around $42,736.00 per student (without grants, scholarships, etc). Now based on figures, this means that Limestone could potential see it's enrollment drop by almost 1/3, or from 630 to 700 less students this coming fall. Do the math, that's a lot of much needed revenue that will not be coming in.
It's very easy to see, that for the school's survival, major cuts will need to be made. Unfortunately, Athletic programs and scholarships they entail are easy pickings when looking at ways of trimming the fat.
Don't be shocked when you hear about different schools making major changes, including with football, scholarships, and other costly programs.Comment
-
A drop of 31% is speculation that is more connected with the programs who will go entirely/mostly online and subsequently lose that large a fraction of students. Don't think that number will happen if schools are meeting in person.
You also have some numbers wrong with respect to Limestone. Roughly 2400-2700 or so total students, but only around 1100 are residential/commuter day students (and those students are the only ones participating in intercollegiate athletics. The rest of the students are taught mostly/completely online and are primarily working adults. The MBA program is almost all online as well (there are a couple of weekend get-together weekends where special project classes are taught). Tuition for the evening/online students is substantially less than that for the day program.
So a drop of 31% would only equate to a loss of around 330 or so students. And while total costs are around $41K, the average paid amount after scholarships/grants is more like $24K. Until final decisions are made regarding changing the fall semester (as far as I know on campus is what is planned) what you are saying the analysts are saying is not likely to happen (at least at that level of loss).Comment
-
Good post Eagle 74. I am sure at Florida Tech and even Furman, everything was just fine until the hammer came down on football at Florida Tech and to 4 sports at Furman...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sport...us/3109052001/
https://www.greenvilleonline.com/sto...ms/5216396002/
Remember at Limestone, 2 years ago they had their All-Sports Banquet and Ceremony at the end of the school year. The Athletic Director Cerino gave out awards to members of the men's and women's swim team, then the next day and without any warning to the coaching staff and swimmers, announced he was dropping both programs. So don't let any denial fool you.... All I know, there is strong consideration taking place......
Comment
-
Good to let the previous posters know not to get complacent. Mikey the Slickster could strike at any moment. No school or programs appear to be safe in this climate.Originally posted by Saints62 View Post
Comment
Comment